Frank Omilian of Maspeth, New
York, e-mailed me with some memories of his (1950 onwards) experiences
in US commercial colour printing and these recollections involve
the Pavelle family. The following is based upon information supplied
to me by Frank, but with a few corrections by courtesy of Dr.Richard Pavelle.

Frank described how Leo Pavelle
and his brother Si (Simon) Pavelle, both American (Leo Pavelle
was the father of Dr Richard Pavelle), ran a colour processing
laboratory at No.533, West 57th Street, near 12th Avenue, Manhattan,
New York, in the late 1940s and into the 1950s. Michael Talbert
has found an entry in Popular Photography magazine, dated December
1949, where Pavelle were advertising "Pavelle Color Christmas
Card prints".

In the summer of 1949, Frank,
then aged around 30 and already engrossed in b&w processing,
applied for a job at the Pavelle laboratory. This job was advertised
in 'Popular Science' magazine. Frank was hired by a gentleman
named Lloyd E Varden, who he
thought at the time to be General Manager (Lloyd Varden was,
in fact, Vice President and Technical Director of Pavelle Color
Incorporated, New York, 1945-1955). Mr Varden was a member of
the Photographic Society of America and was a very popular speaker
at the monthly meetings held in a building opposite the famous
New York Public Library.

After joining the colour processing laboratory, Frank subsequently
met Si (Simon) Pavelle who was the production overseer and later
still he met Leo Pavelle who was the principal owner of the company.
At this time, the Pavelle company was processing colour slide
film and making prints using the 'Printon' process, by the US
Ansco company. Frank describes Printon material as "an
acetate base colour reversal process, high contrast, mediocre
colour and short dye life". It was complex and troublesome
with the need for much repeat printing. As time went on, the
Printon material improved in many ways. The requirements for
'dodging' and 'burning-in' lessened and the colour was more natural.
But dye fading remained a problem.

Things were frenetic in the
photographic processing trade at that time, with the new colour
processes promising high returns to those who could get into
the market place. Frank officially worked 10hrs a day at Pavelle,
but often he worked from 8am to 9pm or even 11pm. He kept this
up for 4years and wasn't financially well rewarded. But daily
orders had to be completed or they would choke the following
day's work flow, so Frank did what had to be done without begrudging
the effort. He left the Pavelle laboratory on good terms and
subsequently met his previous employees at photographic trade
shows where the latest lab. machinery was on display.

Having served his 30 days notice,
Frank left Pavelle in 1953 and opened his own small photo' processing
laboratory, but he then found he worked even longer hours! He
did 22 hour days, rarely seeing the daylight. His operation involved
seven employees, all immigrants "who did work that the
American born shunned" but Frank "managed to
make some money". However, it was at the expense of
his health & temper, which suffered considerably at this
time. His laboratoryused the 'Tri-Color Photo' process,
which produced the best prints available at that time. Prints
were made using triple exposures through red/green/blue filters"
(additive printing, the same as the Paterson Pavelle process).

Frank was presumably inspired
to set himself up in colour processing by the 1954 case brought
against Eastman Kodak in the USA under the 'Sherman Act' which
resulted in a consent decree by which the company agreed to sell
its amateur colour films, Kodachrome and Kodacolor in the US
without including the processing charge in the selling price.
Thus, this opened the door to independent laboratories carrying
out colour processing and printing. Frank describes how "frenzy
over the new colour negative and Kodacolor paper process went
into high gear."

"Tri-color exposures
on Ektacolor material yielded amazing color; I was the only lab
doing it and the trade knew it", says Frank. "Sherman Fairchild of Fairchild
Cameras came to view my 'Rube Goldberg' nightmare" (an
expression which equates to 'Heath Robinson' in the UK) "and
left scratching their heads. Fairchild was at that time engineering
a rotary drum scanner to produce separation negatives from color
negs or positives and wondered how I read the negs to produce
exceptional color prints. Subsequently, Fairchild Cameras became
a good customer for enlargements."

Frank was keen to improve on
his Tri-color equipment and inquired at Bausch & Lomb Optical
about them making sharp wavelength cut-off separation filters.
But the quoted price for an initial run was $5000 for the three
dichroic filters, red, green and blue, measuring two inches square.
That price was beyond Frank's means and so he communicated his
ideas to Berkey Photo, who were then moving up the ladder of
success. They thanked him but reported that they were working
on their own enlarger designs. However, all was not lost. His
contact with Berkey proved lucrative and he agreed to do all
of their custom printing work, leaving Berkey to concentrate
on their high speed volume processor.

After relating the above story
to me, Frank found a web site entitled 'subsemedienwissenschaft'
which indexes a 'Business Weekly' magazine, for 18th August 1956,
saying "Technicolor buys out Pavelle.... ". Previously,
Frank had believed it was sold to Pathe? Subsequently, the Pavelles
went on to develop and sell photo' processing machinery of a
new design and some years later Frank recognised the original
Pavelle laboratory equipment "in the basement of a surplus
photo equipment dealer's store in lower Manhattan".

Sadly, Frank concludes by saying
that he was caught out about 1980 (aged around 60) by the 'One-Hour'
photo service. "The freight train of progress ran over
us."